A 1,905 page suicide note, with 1,433 footnotes, 20 page bibliography

[Liberal_in_LA]

What he left behind: A 1,905-page suicide note
Author described nihilistic outlook

Mitchell Heisman spent years crafting his message.

By David Abel
Globe Staff / September 27, 2010

In the end, no one really knows what led Mitchell Heisman, an erudite, wry, handsome 35-year-old, to walk into Harvard Yard on the holiest day in his faith and fire one shot from a silver revolver into his right temple, on the top step of Memorial Church, where hundreds gathered to observe the Jewish Day of Atonement.

But if the 1,905-page suicide note he left is to be believed — a work he spent five years honing and that his family and others received in a posthumous e-mail after his suicide last Saturday morning on Yom Kippur — Heisman took his life as part of a philosophical exploration he called “an experiment in nihilism.’’

At the end of his note, a dense, scholarly work with 1,433 footnotes, a 20-page bibliography, and more than 1,700 references to God and 200 references to the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, Heisman sums up his experiment:

“Every word, every thought, and every emotion come back to one core problem: life is meaningless,’’ he wrote. “The experiment in nihilism is to seek out and expose every illusion and every myth, wherever it may lead, no matter what, even if it kills us.’’

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/09/27/book_details_motives_for_suicide_at_harvard/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed3

[Canuckistanian]

1. The 793rd footnote is wrong

Now we'll NEVER know why he killed himself.

God, I hate nihilists.

[rug]

2. I'd kill myself halfway through it.

[Traveling_Home]

3. "Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy"

[MinneapolisMatt]

4. If he was looking infamy,

he's not gonna get it.

[RedCloud]

5. Should he get the Heisman award for the longest suicide note ever?

[tridim]

6. And I just watched "The Big Lebowski" today.

[Historic NY]

7. sad he thought he had a meaningless existence...other than his treatise...

How could his obsessive compulsion life style be so overlooked?

[Posteritatis]

15. Very, very easily. The type can more or less vanish from public view. (nt)

[Confusious]

8. He spent to much time in books

You create your own meaning.

sometimes it's good, sometimes bad.

[JoeyTrib]

9. Well, life is meaningless.

That's why God created football. :headbang:

[HughBeaumont]

10. 1905 pages, but larger print and about 250-300 words per page.

Lots of shit about invitations to the liberation of death, Maimonedes, how liberal democrats have it all wrong, etc . . . my GOD does this dude ramble. Supposedly, "I" comes up over 700 times.

[ZombieHorde]

11. Many people will belittle his suicide because he is an atheist; many people hate atheists.

Unfortunately, Heisman considered the fact life has no meaning to be a problem, as opposed to just a simple fact.

[struggle4progress]

12. If "life is meaningless," then it is entirely meaningless to say "life is meaningless," and so

and we still might as well find meanings in our lives

It's sad: the man was obviously mentally ill

[malaise]

13. What a waste

Someone should have told him to get a life.

[wellst0nev0ter]

14. I Liked The Part Where He Called Obama A "Supern**ger"

Well, to be fair he was making some disjointed historical analysis about how the Anglo-Saxons used to be enslaved by the Normans on both sides of the Atlantic until after the Civil War, when they rose above their race to become, I dunno, "uberni**gers" of something and Obama represented that conquest.

But yeah, that was just weird :wtf:

[ladjf]

16. He should have gotten a PHD instead. nt